


Up All Night

by xslytherclawx



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Jewish Character, Jewish Holidays, Shavuot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 08:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11158005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xslytherclawx/pseuds/xslytherclawx
Summary: Chanukah was nice and all, but Nathaniel’s favourite holiday was definitely Shavuot.(or: how do we have a canonically Jewish character named after Jack Kirby of all people and only one fanfic of him being Jewish?)





	Up All Night

**Author's Note:**

> Nath is named in homage to Jack Kirby who was one of the best and most badass Jewish comic book artists (creator of Captain America) and who had to be forcibly restrained from fighting Nazis with his bare hands.  
> How is there no fanfic of Nath being Jewish except for... one fic from like six months ago?  
> Shavuot just happened (it fell on May 31 this year) and we had a short film night and ate cheesecake, so have this. Maybe I'll do one for other holidays.  
> I wrote this in an hour, so please if you see any errors, let me know!

Nathaniel was practically the textbook definition of an introvert. And while he certainly wasn’t one of those pompous sorts who believed introverts were inherently better than extroverts, or any garbage like that, he definitely couldn’t say that he thrived off of extended interaction with other people. In fact, such interaction just  _ drained _ him, and he always found himself needing time to recharge. Usually, that took the form of drawing or scripting comics (something at which he was also, he thought, pretty good at), but he also enjoyed reading.

He was always glad that he belonged to a people who prided themselves on learning and even had holidays dedicated to it. Because, the fact of the matter was, while Chanukah was nice and all (and his parents did like to get him fancy drawing supplies for the holiday, likely, like most, due to its proximity to Christmas, which most of his friends and classmates celebrated), Nathaniel’s favourite holiday was definitely Shavuot.

He loved the history; initially it had been a harvest festival, but after the destruction of the Second Temple, it became a day to celebrate the day Moses was given the Torah at Mount Sinai, and he loved the tradition of staying up late to study Torah. While, generally speaking, he’d prefer to stay up all night working on his comics, he was beginning to appreciate studying Torah more and more. Like most Jews, he didn’t view the Torah as absolute historical fact, but as a fascinating story which was devised to inform moral decisions. 

Besides, most of his heroes in the comic book industry were Jewish and proud of it; why couldn’t he be, too? He even had the same birth name as  _ Jack Kirby _ , for crying out loud! That couldn’t be a coincidence!

And this year, his parents told him that he was allowed to stay up all night – provided, of course, he was actually studying Torah and not drawing. Which he was happy to do. The stories became more interesting as he got older, and he loved the Jewish tradition of fully engaging with the text and picking it apart.

And if, maybe, he got some inspiration to draw, his parents were going to shul anyway. His father, at least, was a massive extrovert, and always spent Shavuot with the congregation. Nathaniel wasn’t complaining. He loved both of his parents, but spending time with his father was somehow always especially draining.

He’d gone to services with his parents, but afterward he’d headed home. Enough older people fawned over him that Nath exceeded his people quota for the day, and he made sure to stop to buy a couple energy drinks. He’d gotten permission to stay up all night, and he was sure as hell going to do it.

He set up his desk, and made sure to put his sketchbooks out of immediate reach. That way, he’d be less tempted.

He started the night out with some videos online. After all, the point of the holiday was learning, and if a youtube channel said it could retell the entire book of Genesis in an hour… well, Nathaniel thought it was worth a try. Besides; it was in English, and this could be good practise. If he wanted to be a comic book artist, speaking English well would be beneficial. The videos were cute, but after that, he decided… maybe he could ease himself into the torah. He pulled out his battered trade paperbacks of  _ Le Chat du rabbin _ and settled down to reread them. Besides, he’d only read  _ Tu n’auras pas d’autre Dieu que moi _ twice, since it was relatively new.

At some point during his rereading of the graphic novels, he’d settled back on his bed, but he was careful not to fall asleep. When he was done, he was itching to watch the movie again, which he supposed counted, too.

And if  _ Le Chat du rabbin  _ counted, so, too did  _ Prince of Egypt _ (even though that was definitely a passover film, and he’d just rewatched it  _ for _ passover) and, for good measure, and since he had it,  _ Joseph: King of Dreams _ . The latter two movies definitely had Christian undertones, but they were mild enough to ignore, and besides, how many movies were there for Jewish kids?

But that reminded him of those movies about the mouse. So he watched  _ An American Tail  _ and  _ Fievel Goes West. _ By the time he was done the second movie, he’d finished his energy drinks, and the sun was out. He checked the clock.

He’d spent nine and a half hours… watching cartoons and reading graphic novels. But it was all in the Shavuot spirit! But, well, he figured, he might as well  _ actually _ start trying to study properly. He was much too tired to read any biblical texts, and realised belatedly that he should have  _ started _ with that and ended with the movies. So he got one of the siddurim from the living room bookshelf and figured he could read the prayers and hymns and have that count.

His parents had come home at some point during the night, and his father found him twenty minutes later, sitting on the couch.

“How was your first solo Shavuot?”

Nathaniel looked at his father. He was sure he looked terrible, but his father didn’t betray any kind of judgement. After all, he was sure that his father knew that Nathaniel often stayed up past his designated bedtime… but, sparing the one unfortunate episode where he’d been akumatized (and only then because he’d been bullied,  _ not _ because of his perfectly merited crush on Marinette), Nathaniel was a good kid and stayed out of trouble.

“Watched a lot of movies. That counts, right? As long as they’re about Jewishness?”

His father shrugged. “Should be. It’s in the spirit.” He jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. “Want coffee? And don’t worry about school today; it’s a holiday.”

“Thanks, dad,” he said. “Coffee sounds great.”

His father nodded and went into the kitchen. Nathaniel returned to the siddur. His father was less… exhausting than usual. He wondered how late his parents had been at the synagogue. He thought the study session usually ended at midnight, but he wasn’t sure. His father returned with a cup of coffee for Nathaniel.

“Did you know this siddur has ladino hymns in it?” Nathaniel asked absently.

“Well, your mother  _ is _ sephardi,” his father said. “Which one is that?”

Nathaniel held up the book so his father could see the cover, but he kept reading.

“You know,” his father said, “there’s no shame in… say, finishing your last two hours by watching another movie. Or rereading some graphic novels.”

Nathaniel shrugged. “The hymns aren’t hard to follow. Well, the translations, anyway.” He accepted the mug of coffee from his father in any case and took a sip. Just two more hours…

-

He woke up at noon with a throw blanket tucked around him. Well, so much for studying for twelve hours.

But still, ten hours of studying on his own had definitely been more enjoyable than most holidays. And now that he’d (mostly) done it, he had a plan for how to better go about it next year.

**Author's Note:**

> references, in order:  
> • _Le Chat du rabbin_ is a graphic novel series (adapted to animated film in 2011) by Joann Sfar, a French Jewish comic book artist and writer. It deals with a cat who gains the gift of speech after eating a parrot. I love it. The cat is the main character and he tries to become a good Jew and it is wonderful. The film critiques colonialism and pokes fun at Tin Tin for being 1) Belgian and 2) a colonising shithead. A Soviet Jew punches out a racist coloniser who was objectifying an African woman. It is wonderful.  
> • _Tu n’auras pas d’autre Dieu que moi_ is the most recent part of Le Chat du rabbin. Title "you will not have any other God but me", which is, like, the basis of Judaism.  
>  • _Prince of Egypt_ retells the book of Exodus. It's usually watched for Passover.  
> • _Joseph, King of Dreams_ retells the story of Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt, falsely imprisoned, and then released to become the most powerful man in Egypt.  
>  • _An American Tail_ was legitimately my favourite movie as a kid for a while. It's interesting bc mice are Jews but there are also presumably human Jews bc humans exist? Anyway this Jewish mouse and his family in the Pale of Settlement flee after a pogrom to go to America, and he gets separated from his family and saves the day. Uses the cat/mouse metaphor for antisemites (or even just gentiles) and Jews.  
>  • _Fievel Goes West_ is the sequel which I haven't seen in probably 15 years, but... basically the Mousekewitz family moves to the wild west.  
>  • siddur - prayer book  
> • Ladino - sephardic Jewish diasporic language. It has a base of Spanish, but integrates Hebrew and is written with the Hebrew alphabet.


End file.
